It wasn't just the cloud coverage that was making first-year Warsaw Lady Tigers softball coach Nikki Wood feel gloomy Friday night.
After seeing her team blow a 4-0 lead in a 14-7 Northern Lakes Conference loss to the Concord Lady Minutemen at the Tigers Athletic Complex, Wood was at a loss herself.
"I've said all I can say to them," Wood said about her 6-6 Tigers, who sit at 2-3 in the NLC. "They know what their mistakes are and the adjustments they need to make. It's up to them at this point. We're 12 games into the season and now our conference chances, unless we start rolling, they're slim. Right now, they need to play for pride."
In the opening inning, Warsaw was full of pride, scoring four runs on three hits, highlighted by a three-run round-tripper by senior Sam Snider.
However, from there, Warsaw managed just four more hits and three more runs, which came in the sixth inning with the team down 14-4.
Over the past week, Wood has had players get injured in sophomore catcher Kelsey Dotson and Snider, as well as get sick, in the case of sophomore Kendra Marshall.
And even though they were all in the lineup, Dotson did seem to favor an injured knee and Snider was unavailable to pitch, but was the team's designated player, going 1 for 2 with the home run.
"It hurts that my senior pitcher, Sam Snider, is out," Wood said. "(Senior pitcher) Kaitlin (Gruenewald) starts to struggle, so I have to bring my freshman (Alex Sanchez) in. And, she actually didn't do bad. She did pretty decent, so I'm proud of her work ethic."
Through the first two innings, Gruenewald was looking strong too, but the same couldn't be said for the defense.
Concord sophomore Sammy Swain opened the second off with a hit, but then junior Melanie Meyer and junior Casey Cartwright loaded up the bases after back-to-back Warsaw errors.
However, from there Warsaw freshman third baseman Kayla Snider and senior first baseman Kaitlin Reichard each throw the ball home on back-to-back groundouts before Gruenewald struck out sophomore Paige Freeze to get out of the situation.
But just when the Tigers were feeling good, Concord tore off eight runs in the third, with freshman Leslie Crawford hitting a three-run homer and Swain following with a solo shot.
"We finally got our timing down against (Gruenewald)," Concord coach Robb Freeze said. "She likes to throw inside-outside, and I think we got used to the rhythm."
And on a night when the wind appeared to want to tear the flags from the pole, any ball that got airborne had a shot to leave the park.
"We left balls high, and with this wind tonight, anything left high was going to go," Wood said. "That was our constant thing with our pitchers tonight."
The consecutive homers only tied the game at 4-4, but the tone in the park had changed as the Minutemen would score four more in the frame.
"That was big high to get out of that base-loaded situation and we're still leading 4-0," Wood said. "But that's how it's been for us. One inning, then boom. That's the blow-up and then our heads hang."
Wood's girls may have gotten down, but when Freeze's team had the same opportunity to do so, they didn't, battling back and scoring 14-unanswered runs after getting into the 4-0 hole.
"We are all about being mentally tough," Freeze said about his 9-5 (5-1 NLC) team. "We want to see what we're going to be made of when we get down. So far, except for one game, when we were down in the first inning, we've come back and won."
Coming into the game, Freeze had an idea of what kind of team Warsaw was, but couldn't really settle on what to expect.
"You look through the papers and see them go up and then they go down," he said. "It was hard to see what kind of team was going to show. Then, at first, I thought, 'Oh, it's the up team.'."
Ultimately, it wasn't the 'up' team and Wood can only continue to look for that squad.
"We have to decide to play to our potential, because there is to much potential," she said. "That's the thing that's frustrating as a coach. I have excellent skilled players, excellent hitters. I just can't figure it out right now."
Wood's next chance to figure it out is today against at Carroll before returning to NLC play Monday at home against Elkhart Memorial.
